Worshippers kiss icons of the Virgin Mary during a celebration of the Feast of Assumption in Tokacli village, outside Altinozu in Turkey on Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. The Feast of Assumption marks the Virgin Mary's ascension into heaven.

On Aug. 15, Catholics around the world celebrated the feast of “The Assumption of Mary” into heaven.

More typically referred to simply as “The Assumption,” to distinguish it from Jesus’ resurrection and “ascension” into heaven, the holy day celebrates Catholic teaching that Jesus’s mother, after the course of her natural life, was taken body and soul into heavenly glory. There is no formal Catholic teaching about whether Mary, like her son Jesus, actually died.

Yet this Catholic teaching — that Mary of Nazareth was assumed bodily into heaven — is but one of a number of “stumbling blocks” that Catholic devotion to Mary creates for other Christians, other faiths and even some Catholics. Perhaps these days, even for many Catholics, it is simply a matter of indifference, for it runs contrary to so many of our assumptions about what is real — about life and death, politics and possibility, on earth and in heaven.

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